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I knew about the 2003 Catalan government change and about ERC, but not about the intra-socialist split and the senators.

So if I got it right, it's both normal uncalculating nationalism (or calculating only short-sighted, using Zapatero's dependency), and bowing to demands from extremists within the governing coalition.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Sun Jan 8th, 2006 at 01:23:10 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The PSOE has an explicitly federal structure. That is, it is composed of regional parties which are, to a large extent, sovereign, and are coordinated at the national level by a Federal Executive Commission. This gives rise to extremely powerful regional leaders, known as Barons, one of which (from Castilla-La Mancha was Defence Minister José Bono.

The strongest regional parties are the Galician PSdG, Basque PSE-EE (E for Euzkadi), Catalan PSC, on account of their national status; and then the parties from Andalusia, Extremadura and Castilla-La Mancha, on account of their size and their status as PSOE strongholds.

For instance, Extremeño leader Rodríguez Ibarra has criticised the Catalan Statute as strongly as the moderate side of the PP. The PSOE's territorial commission in charge of negotiating the national party's position on the Estatut is effectively under control of Alfonso Guerra, former Vice President under Felipe González who is an apparatchik and arguably one of several Andalusian "Barons" (together with regional president Manuel Chaves - González, though he is from Sevilla, generally stays above the fray and used to rely on Guerra to control the party apparatus when he led it).

While we're at it, both Rodríguez Ibarra and Bono were considered Guerristas back when it mattered.

(Although I have not been in Spain for a while, I can say all these things with confidence because these same people have been playing the same roles for over 20 years)

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sun Jan 8th, 2006 at 02:41:20 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Ah, thanks for the little Spanish Kremlinology :-)

BTW, does the Nueva Vía party wing still exist - or is comparison with Bliar' NuLab (and Schröder's Neue Mitte) not longer comfortable for Zapatero & followers?

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Mon Jan 9th, 2006 at 07:42:19 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I am not quite sure what the deal is with Nueva Vía. I think the comparison to Blair and Schroeder is inappropriate. After Gonzalez lost his majority in parliament and until Zapatero gained the leadership (1993-2000) the PSOE was dominated internally by the conflict between Guerristas (traditional socialists, apparatchiks, barons, followers of then already former VP Alfonso Guerra) and Renovadores (renewers: third-way-ish centre left close to Gonzalez). Zapatero's nueva vía was in my opinion new with respect to this split.

Nueva Via was unheard of outside party circles before the leadership contest won by Zapatero, and has not been talked of since. Zapatero used other memes in his campaign to return PSOE to power.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jan 9th, 2006 at 05:10:49 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Just to confirm that the Barons are alive and well...

El Pais: The PM dines at La Moncloa with socialist barons (12-01-2006)

The appointment was at 20.30 at the Palacio de la Moncloa and called to it were the regional secretaries of PSOE and the presidents of autonomous governments, as well as the mayor of A Coruña, Francisco Vázquez, as presidente of the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces; the [PSOE's] Organization secretary, José Blanco, and the [party's] parliament spokesmen, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba and Joan Lerma.


A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Jan 12th, 2006 at 08:16:40 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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